Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:58:03 -0700 From: David Kurtz <davidkurtz@mac.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: How to recover from setting boot_single=""? Message-ID: <r02010400-1035-C331CEF41ED311D98B59003065C7D828@[10.1.218.146]>
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Short story: I placed a single line, boot_single=3D"" into the previously empty file /boot/loader.conf and now my machine boots w= ith an extremely limited read-only volume. How do I get my old boot behavior back? Long story: I was muddling through updating the kernel and world for the fi= rst time, going from FreeBSD 5.1 =3D> 5.2. Following instructions in /usr/s= rc/UPDATING I made backups, made buildworld, etc. until it got to the point= where it says reboot in single user. Never having done that, I tried first by "reboot"ing, but for some reason m= y USB keyboard doesn't get power until further on in the boot cycle, so I c= ouldn't just "press 4." I looked through the docs and found instruction say= ing that I should set boot_single. I'm guessing I should have set it to som= ething other than "", which is just copied from /boot/defaults/loader.conf. So, a couple more questions: what is this limited read-only mode exactly? W= here are my files (e.g. /usr is empty)? What should I have done? Is it poss= ible to back out? It's a personal sandbox, and everything I need is already safely backed up;= if I need to just blast the whole system with a CD install, I can do that.= But I am curious to know if it's possible to u-turn in this cul-de-sac. Ap= parently, I know just enough to get myself into trouble, but not enough to = get out.
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